This Translation Tuesday, we present an extract of Marta Jiménez Serrano’s “We Have to Quit”, translated from the Spanish by Colleen Noland. The story follows the relationship of Marcelo and Eloísa, two Madrid twenty-somethings who meet while smoking outside a bar. Although they don’t know it yet, they will go on to spend four years together, after which there will be a hard break up. The cautious hang-out phase of their proto-relationship is described with lashings of portent, the doom and pathos underscored by gossipy asides from a catty chorus watching the tragedy unfold. You can almost picture popcorn on their laps.
The cigarette may burn, but it is our mouths that blow smoke.
—Julio Ramón Ribeyro
She’s been smoking ever since she was seventeen. Always Golden Virginias, always with the silver Zippo inherited from her Grandpa Juan, who smoked both because he liked it and because it pissed off her mom. She started smoking because she wanted to be like Grandpa Juan. And because she wanted to piss off her mom.
He’s been smoking ever since he was twenty-one. He started during his Erasmus exchange program because a girl at a party offered him a cigarette and he had to say yes. At first, he smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes until he switched to Pueblos around when everyone started rolling their own cigarettes. He then went back to Luckys for a while—it seemed more hygienic—and now he smokes black label Drums, which he rolls beforehand and carries with him in a cigarette case. Rolling tobacco is a lot cheaper, after all.
This story starts with a simple gesture: she holds her arm out, offering her lit Zippo without letting it go. He bends towards the flame and cups his hand to light his cigarette. It’s almost midnight on a Friday. They’re on Valencia Street, and she’s wearing black under a denim jacket. He’s wearing jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. He straightens and takes a puff.
“Thanks.”
She closes the silver Zippo, puts it in her jacket pocket, and leans against the wall.
“You’re welcome.”
For a moment, that feels like the end of it: the conversation, the night, the possibilities. Because that’s how romances form in movies and some books. How else? They ask for a light, and that’s it. Reality’s never like that. In reality, she looks off into the distance while he looks at the ground, and they both wonder why no one else came out for a smoke. But then, a voice calls out from inside the bar.